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VOICE OVER CAREER Always Complaining About Whatever On VO Social Media? It Could Be Career Sabotage  By Tom DheereVoice Actor & Coach Complaining is something we all do from time to time. Some more than others. Why do humans seem to enjoy complaining so much? Some are complaining
to express dissatisfaction or a loss of control. Others are complaining
just to vent.
We see people on various social media groups complaining about all
sorts of subjects, from rates to poorly written scripts, but mostly about
Pay-to-Play sites. Either they hate them or they aren't getting enough
work to suit them. MATCHING UP WITH REALITY Here's the reality of it. The majority of voice talents can't find work on casting sites for a variety of reasons:
But even if you have the talent, proper training, an effective demo and
good audition technique, remember that casting sites (to use Steven Jay Cohen's
analogy) are like dating sites. Sometimes it just takes a while to find
the right match. If you don't have the training or an effective demo,
well, all the complaining in the world won't help. FYI, if you're a voice actor who hates Pay-to-Play sites, they're not
going anywhere. I will say that if your complaining also involves
educating new voice actors as to the potential pitfalls of certain P2P
sites and other steps they can take to book work like Direct Marketing,
that's cool. Just don't shout at the rain. It doesn't help anyone. SABOTAGING YOUR CAREER? Complaining on social media about anything related to your profession, in my humble opinion, is ill-advised. If you're a voice seeker, would you want to work with someone who
complains all the time? What if, while complaining, you violate your
NDA, disparage the end-client, or make a comment that could be
interpreted as racist, sexist, homophobic, or anti-Semitic? Actors,
singers, and other artists sabotage their own careers all the time on
social media. Don't be one of those idiots.
If you feel the need to complain; take it offline and look inward:
If you have an actual problem that needs solving, sure, you can look
to social media if you want, but PLEASE do some research before you post a
question. Trust me, the odds are that you're not the first person to have
the same issue. ------------------ ABOUT TOM Over more than two decades, Tom Dheere - AKA 'The VO Strategist' - has narrated thousands of projects for clients in over a dozen countries and voiced more than 40 audiobooks. He is also a voice over business consultant, a coach at Edge Studio, was the marketing consultant for the Voice Over Virtual online conference, and is also writer/producer of the sci-fi action comic book Agent 1.22. Email: tom@tomdheere.com Web: www.tomdheere.com |
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Comments (2)
Jake Ficken
8/15/2020 at 10:42 AM
Tom I couldn't agree more. Even though I'm still a beginner, I almost fell into a small spell of depression because of these comments on VO groups. I've been working with a coach for about 4 months now and for the last 2 weeks I've been patiently waiting for him to finalize my demo. So I've been kind of just practicing, getting familiar with my software and coasting the groups for business tips so I know I'm starting off with a good plan. I had to cut myself off because of all the complaining about the P2P's I was planning on signing up with. It almost made me feel like I was bound to fail from the beginning but I thought it's probably the strategies they're using that hurts their odds and just starting out I shouldn't expect to book the first 10 auditions anyway. Thanks for the reassurance Tom.
Joe Loesch
8/13/2020 at 1:46 PM
Nice article, Tom. I'm all for less complaining!
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